The conventional method of utilizing a magazine for loading cartridges is that a shooter should load the cartridges into the magazine one by one and insert the magazine including the cartridges into the weapon. Since there is the annoying problem of the necessity to reload the cartridge, one by one, into an empty magazine which is taken away from a rifle after the ammunition in the magazine is consumed, the firing power is weakened due to the time delay needed to reload the cartridges into the magazine, particularly in the case of an emergency when a combat soldier has to fire for long time periods against a surprise attack by a large enemy force.
At the time of the Vietnam conflict where the Korean Army participated, a combat soldier had to meet combat conditions carrying seven or eight loaded magazines as well as paper boxes packed with twenty round cartridges.
Thus, when the ammunition of the seven to eight magazines were consumed, the paper box units of twenty rounds had to be reloaded into empty magazines, one by one, while hiding in a prostrate position. In the case of the automatic M-16 rifle, a magazine loaded with twenty rounds of ammunition is fired in no more than a few minutes. Accordingly, it can be easily determined how fast the ammunition is consumed when automatically firing the magazines of the seven or eight pieces. Furthermore, a period of time required to reload a magazine with the twenty rounds of cartridges is about thirty seconds for a skilled shooter to as high as two to three minutes according to the particular situation. It can be concluded that the time for reloading the ammunition is more than several times the firing time.
By reason of these defects experienced during combat, the soldiers' reloading operation had to be executed under the covering fire of automatic small weapons or during the covering fire of comrades in arms. However, in the case of an all out assault, a special commando mission, an attack by a large enemy troop, a reconnaissance mission with a small unit or in other extreme situations, the sacrifice of life due to the time required for reloading was severe.
Further, to shorten the period of time for reloading the cartridge and to make it possible to easily reload the cartridges into the magazines, filled cartridges which were filled with ten rounds of ammunition and in which rails were attached to the back of the cartridge adjacent to the percussion cap of the paper box were supplied at the time of the Vietnam war.
The railing cartridge, after setting the adaptor on the back part of the empty magazine and inserting the end of the rails therein, is depressed from the top to the bottom by the thumb and then ten rounds are loaded one after the other. However, a defect of this device is the necessity of applying force against the elasticity of the spring, and further if the ammunition is depressed with excessive force, it becomes twisted and extends away from the rails so that the loading must be halted, and at the same time, the finger might be injured by bumping into the rails and magazine due to the force of the continuous depressing action. Therefore, this device suffers from the same type of deficiencies as the other conventional devices.
Furthermore, in the case of trying to load twenty rounds of ammunition into the magazine, because of the strong urging force of the spring, it is only possible to load from seventeen to eighteen rounds into the magazine. In this case, it is very difficult to reload the cartridges because the spring in the magazine is depressed too strongly for a soldier to overcome the urging force thereof. To avoid this difficulty, the combat soldiers, in many cases, threw away the remaining two-three rounds of ammunition in the paper box during combat situations. Thus, a material loss of ammunition is the result. Also, the enemy could get and use the ammunition and weapons of our troops. Furthermore, it was impossible to reload the ammunition into the magazine with the rail type cartridges while engaging in night combat. It was also inconvenient to reload the ammunition in cold weather if one is to return to the conventional way of reloading ammunition, one by one, which results in a decrease in firing power and fighting power.
A device which can be reloaded at once into a magazine directly utilizing a cartridge clip containing from twenty to thirty rounds is suggested in U.S. Pat. No. 4,226,041. However, U.S. Pat. No. 4,226,041 has a number of deficiencies including a high developing cost because it is necessary to change the structure of the magazines and the weapons in order to apply this device, since it is impossible to use the device directly on existing weapons due to the structure of inserting the magazine directly into the weapon.